At the end of each year, we hold one of my favorite Federation convenings: our New Executive Director Boot Camp.

This year-end event brings together the executive directors of our state groups who recently started at their organizations for a weekend of intensive training and relationship-building.

This past weekend we brought together the six newest executive directors for our two-day convening in Boston: Andrea Bowen of Garden State Equality, Elise Johansen of EqualityMaine,  Dave Montez of One Colorado,  Andrew Schneider of Fairness West Virginia, Todd Simmons of Equality Hawaii, and Troy Williams of Equality Utah.

Boot camp is at the heart of our State Leadership Project, Equality Federation’s commitment to build strong, resilient, and adaptive leaders who will propel their state organizations and the movement for equality forward.

This year’s boot camp sought to ground leaders in useful frameworks in the major functions of their jobs — financial management, fundraising, advocacy, and managing boards and staff — as well as the less tangible but equally important leadership skills to mobilize people for social change. We also made time to workshop some of the current leadership challenges they are facing, so the skills we work to develop can be put to use right away.

Fran Hutchins and I lead the training, with help from our colleague Anne Stanback and experienced executive directors K.C. Coredini of MassEquality, and Mason Dunn of Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition.

Not only is Boot Camp a time to learn, it provides new leaders the unique opportunity to connect with other new EDs and a few seasoned state leaders, like K.C. and Mason, who come to share their experience and expertise. Those peer connections create an infrastructure for leaders to learn from and support each other, and we still see strong connections between EDs from past cohorts.

Dave Montez feels he gained more than just new knowledge while at Boot Camp:

"As a new executive director caught up in the day-to-day, you don't realize all the things you don't know. This training gave me incredible insight that I'm already implementing. It's also a great opportunity to connect with other new EDs who are dealing with similar highs and lows. Knowing you're not alone makes a huge difference. Not only did I walk away with new skills, but I also made some great new friends."

For Andrea Bowen, this weekend was rewarding as well:

"Being an ED is frequently overwhelming. At the start of the job, you hear advice, and it goes out of your head. This event, though, was the absolute perfect space for me to learn and relearn stuff that, five months into the job, I can really absorb. And Fran, Ian, and Anne were masterful at making the kind of calm learning environment that high-strung current ED types need in order to learn.”

Personally, I was struck by how this class of new executive directors is one of the most experienced we’ve worked with since we held our first boot camp in 2010. I can’t wait to see the great things these remarkable leaders do as they lead their organizations forward!